Pixelated Audio

Going back to the NES we get The Guardian Legend, a curiousity developed by Compile that is best described as Zelda plus Zanac. Originally released in 1988 for the NES, The Guardian Legend or "Guardic Gaiden" is the pseudo sequel to MSX game Guardic from 1986. While the developers insist there's no story links between the games, there's enough gameplay and music shared between the two that we deci...

Today we're joined by composer and indie game developer Timmie aka DDRKirby(ISQ) to talk about their music for Super Mega Zero, an awesome fast-paced puzzle platformer for PC and Switch. We also spend a good deal of time talking about DDRKirby's work in the indie game scene, as well as their upcoming game Rhythm Quest which sounds amazing. Super Mega Zero was developed by Silkworm and Rogue Games...

Kicking off the new year with a Famicom banger! Uchuu Keibitai SDF is a vertical shooter released by HAL Laboratory in 1990 for the Japanese market only. While the game leaves a bit to be desired, the soundtrack is great and definitely worth exploring. It was composed by HAL veterans, Jun Ishikawa (known for Kirby Super Star, Alcahest, and Hyper Zone) and Hideki Kanazashi (known for F1-Race, Mach...

Following up our last show on CANYON.MID, we're joined by the artist that closed out the show, Austin Green. Austin is a guitarist and leader of the band WASD. We're going all in on PC game music today with a mix of Austin's favorites as well as PC game music covers from his recently released album Escape. For more info about Austin and WASD, check out the following links: Linktree | Bandcamp Don'...

Today we're talking about one of early PC computing's most iconic songs, "Trip Through the Grand Canyon" also known as "CANYON.MID" with none other than the composer himself, George Stone! We take a trip down memory lane and discuss how the song was written, how it ended up on millions of PCs around the world starting with Windows 3.0, and its status as a song that remains beloved to this day. Geo...

We're once again joined by our guest host from the last episode, KVGM host Hammock and his father figure Craig Stadler in this milestone show. It's Expansion Pack XXX - Episode 169, covering the music from adult visual novels and adventure games. Hammock is an expert spelunker in the world of adult VGM jams and the numeric convergence was just too good to pass up. We've got a selection of tunes bo...

KVGM's host Hammock joins us once again in this expansion pack to talk about the many lovely tunes produced for T&E Soft golf games over the years. We also have the voice of another special guest from 1995's hit game Pebble Beach Golf Links, arguably the crown jewel of T&E golf games. Kick back, relax and and enjoy an Arnold Palmtree in the golf clubhouse along with some relaxing tunes. If you lik...

The hotly anticipated Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge is here for your listening pleasure! The game saw several releases between 1992-1994 on the SNES, Genesis, Game Boy and Game Gear. It was developed by UK games company Software Creations Ltd., published by LJN on Nintendo systems and by Acclaim subsidiary Flying Edge on Sega systems. It's a bad game where you control 5 different ch...

Another year another MAGWest, we're back in person this year exploring the depths of what makes 'water music' with a legend of VGM analysis, 8-bit Music Theory! We put him through the paces as we goof off in our usual Pixelated Audio style. First we 'get to the bottom' of what makes water music sound so wet with some examples and audience commentary, followed by a silly but fun quiz! Check out 8-b...

Trying out a new format today with MIDI Spotlight starting on a PC98 title called Mime, published and developed by Studio Twinkle and composed by Hiroaki Sano. For a while now, VGMRips stalwart ValleyBell has graciously streamed music to our Discord channel featuring somewhat less common MIDI versions of the soundtracks on authentic hardware. We wanted to share his work more broadly with our audie...

Pixelated Audio joins the many podcasts participating in the Masters of VGM (@MastersofVGM) event organized by bedroth, host of Very Good Music and BGMania. Masters of VGM is a month long event of participating podcasts and their own take on who they think are the best of the best! We picked 8 veteran VGM Masters and aimed for a good blend of well known and lesser known tracks to keep things inter...

We're joined today by another amazing and prolific guest; composer Jeff van Dyck. Instead of focusing on a specific game we take a tour through Jeff's entire career from Skitchin' all the way to recent games like Unpacking. Jeff began his career in 1992 with EA (Electronic Arts), working on games like the FIFA, NHL series, and Need for Speed 1 & 2. He went on to do music for many of the major game...

We had a great time at VGMTogether presenting our talk on game audio logging and the dedicated communities around the world that have spent years archiving music as accurately as possible. It's a commonly overlooked topic that nevertheless supports a lot of activities in the game music scene. You may have heard it referred to as "VGM ripping"; logging is the process of accessing, capturing, organi...

Today we're joined be returning guest Jesse Bishop aka Street Cleaner to talk about Roadkill! It's an Amiga and Amiga CD-32 top down combat racing game released around early 1995, developed by Vision Software and published by Acid Software, both New Zealand based studios. The game's music was written by Blair Zuppicich, a composer and demoscene artist that went by the handle BaZ. Jesse fills us in...

The 8-Bit Big Band is a 30-65 member Jazz/Pops orchestra (led by Charlie Rosen) that formed to celebrate and realize some of the best musical themes written from various video games. The members of the 8-Bit Big Band come from all around the world, but most reside primarily in New York City, and are some of the most highly sought after musicians and performers, all gamers at heart who enjoy playin...

Six more tracks that we love but didn't quite fit anywhere else. As always we hope you enjoy! Track List: 0:00:00 Dunk Shot (Arcade) - Toast! by unknown composer 0:07:18 Syd Mead's Terraforming (TG-CD) - Stage 1 by Katsuhiro Hayashi 0:14:16 Soldam (GB) - Theme of Sekiero Gameboy conversion by unknown, original arcade version by Atsuyoshi Isemura and Yasuyuki Suzuki 0:21:54 Gurumin: A Monstrous Adv...

We've got a great show today with Dan Hess, the composer behind Pilotwings 64! It was released as a launch title for the N64 in 1996 by Paradigm Simulation and is the second in the series (Pilotwings, Pilotwings 64, Pilotwings Resort). Pilotwings 64 continues the tradition of a lightweight flight sim where you use a variety of flight tools like a hang glider, jet pack, gyrocopter to complete simpl...

In this installment of Pixelated Audio, we're talking about Crisis Wing, a retro-styled 90s shmup that draws inspiration from many classic shooters. We're joined by Finnish one-man indie games developer and composer, Pauli, aka pieslice of Pieslice Productions (@PiesliceP). It's a modern take on all of your favorite retro shooters, with all of the tough bosses, bullet patterns, and FM music you ca...

We're back to livestream for virtual MAGWest 2021, this time with composer and returning friend of the show, Chase Bethea! We talk with Chase about his music from games both released and upcoming, his process, as well as a short interactive audio demo, and some Q&A from the live chat.   Chase Bethea is a Composer & Technical Audio Designer that has received many accolades throughout his career. In...

Today we're talking about an old school dungeon crawler RPG called Advanced Fantasian. The game was released by Xtalsoft in 1988 for the PC-88 and Sharp X1 in 1989. Xtalsoft was a small RPG-focused developer that eventually merged with T&E Soft, a topic we covered last episode. The composers Chihiro Fujioka and Yumi Satake (nee Kinoshita) did a great job with the soundtrack and more than that they...

We're back with an episode covering Greatest Driver, a 2D Formula 1 racer for the MSX2 released in 1988. The game was produced by T&E Soft, a developer and publisher primarily known for golf games in the 90s, Red Alarm for the Virtual Boy and the Hydlide series. Composers Kazunori Hasegawa and Shigeru Tomita bring us some fun jams, especially the intro and ending tunes. Most of the music is using...

Today's source of great music is the Pac-Man Championship Edition series. This is an audio companion to HG101's Top47k Games: Episode 420 where we were invited to review Pac-Man CE DX+ with Xerxes and Bobinator! Bandai Namco's Pac-Man has been a mainstay for over 40 years and this is Pac-Man with a twist. You have your ghosts, your pellets and your maze, but now the maze is split in half and it's...

We're taking you out to the ball game in this short and fun episode covering music from 3 Sega System 16 baseball games: Major League, Super League and Excite League. It's late 80s baseball from Japanese arcades, so it's 2D sprites, digitized samples and YM2151 FM patches all the way down. No composers confirmed but Tohru Nakabayashi, Hiroshi Kawaguchi and Katsuhiro Hayashi are the prime suspects....

F-1 Super Battle is a racing game from 1994 for Jaleco's Mega System 32 arcade board. It's notable features are that it still features sprite graphics fairly late for an arcade game, and the upright arcade cabinet is a somewhat unusual egg shape. No composer information in this mini episode, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the music! Special thanks to GTheGuardian for the original rip on VGMR...

Street Cleaner: The Video Game released for PC and Switch in 2021 is a classic 2D side-scroller inspired by NES action games like Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania and Sunsoft's Batman. It was developed by Creaky Lantern Games, an indie game studio run by Jesse Bishop and Brooks Bishop (no relation). It is a very real game based on the fictional Street Cleaner 80s revenge film(s) on which Jesse based his...